Too Much: Art and Society in the Sixties, 1960-75

by Robert Hewison

In Too Much Robert Hewison tells the story of a tumultuous decade-and-a-half when, more than at any time in our history, the arts were the battleground for the conflicting forces of social change. The new affluence of the Sixties released the pent-up energy of a generation of artists,
writers, poets and performers who rejected the cultural conformism of the Fifties. This energy found new forms, from Pop Art to pop music, from fringe theater to performance poetry, and helped to create the semi-mythical image of "Swinging London".
The book covers such cultural icons as The Beatles, Mary Quant, David Hockney, and Harold Pinter. Hewison shows that in spite of the political disenchantment that followed, the counter-culture of the Sixties had a profound influence on the world of the arts. Between 1970 and 1975 the freedoms
secured--and the conservative responses provoked--set the terms for the cultural conditions of today.
This is the third and final volume of Robert Hewison's much praised contemporary cultural history, 'The Arts in Britain since 1939'.

Genres: Art, History

368 pages, Hardcover

First published April 4, 2013

Reviews

[Lysergius · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is another cultural history of Britain in the sixties which describes the lives and times of the rich in their London playground. The fact is most people worked at their jobs during the period described and were only able to be weekend hippies. Like most revolutions in the arts it was a bourgeois revolution. The main motivating factor, the psychoactive drugs are still illegal... Go figure.